


Porcelain Mask

by Teawithmagician



Category: Original Work
Genre: City Fantasy, Family Issues, Fantasy, Gen, Original Mythology, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 21:04:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5885128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teawithmagician/pseuds/Teawithmagician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Porcelain Mask, possessed by an ancient demon, offers an old woman magical powers in exchange for the life of her granddaughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Porcelain Mask

“What a good, obedient girl,” said the Mask, when Po's granddaughter walked away through the museum doors, saying goodbye to security and concierge. “One could give a lot of nice, sweet things in exchange for such a girl. Doesn't one wish to be forever young and have a power over her life and the lives of the others?”

The Mask was exhibited in a glass case opposite to the wall, so the last rays of setting sun fell on it, getting refracted in its agate black eyes. Nameplate in front of the glass case with the Mask explained its history, but before Po's granddaughter came to read it, Po never knew that it was a sacred mask of the Empires of old.

“Everything is a strong word,” said Po, rubbing the floor. “A serious one. My husband promised me everything if I would run away with him. What I got was his mother, who made me wash and clean all day long, his drunken friends, who pushed me to the corners, and children, to whom I gave birth and whom I buried.”

“Your husband was just a man,” objected the Mask, “and I am much more than any man.”

“You are just a piece of porcelain on a wall,” friendly reminded Po, squeezing the cloth over the tin pail. The museum had automatic steam cleaners, but in exhibition halls parquet was old and expensive, and automatic cleaners might harm it – at least, that was what the director Zhou insisted on.

“As you weren't an old woman for all of your life, I wasn't always a mask,” the Mask started insinuatingly. “I served the Empresses and the Emperors, and the Empresses and the Emperors of served me. They gave me all they valued the most, and what they valued the most was not their treasures and palaces, but who were ought to carry their flame through the centuries: their children.”

“I lost the most of my children,” Po shook her head. “I would gladly die just to know they would live, but nobody gave me a choice. Who were all your Emperors and Empresses, if they had everything but everything was not enough so they sacrificed their own children?”

“It's a great honor to have your child serving the Emerald Dragon,” the Mask made a yawning sound though it was hard to check if it yawned or not, because its little mouth froze forever in sweet little half-a-smile. “I admit, you may not understand it, though. You are nothing but a cleaning woman who cannot read and write, so your granddaughter comes to you to read aloud.”

“I was born in a village in the Soaring Mountains,” Po made a short, gentle laugh. “Nor my mother neither my father knew how to read and write. When my husband took me to the city of Yen, only there I met people who could read and write as easy as I breathed.”

“What have you seen in our life?” asked the Mask and continued mercilessly as her question needed no Po's answer, “Nothing. You've seen nothing. Even the most pitiful slave-girl in the palace of Emerald Dragon can say more of her life than you, and you look older than the Dragon herself though she was born thousand of years ago. Don't you regret?”

Po thought a while, and responded, slowly and carefully, “Yes, I regret. But my daughter and my granddaughter are all that I have. My mother-in-law, when my daughter was born, said I cursed a family because I gave birth to a useless girl instead of a boy, but I didn't care, I was happy. And when my daughter got pregnant from the man she said was a sailor, everybody judged on us, but I was happy, too – in nine months I was to see my granddaughter.”

“You are working because of them, don't you?”

“I am working because I can help them,” Po threw cloth in the corner, there was hard to rub with a mop, and, having groaned a little, knelt. “You don't know what is it to have a daughter, do you?”

“No, I don't.” The Mask agreed easily. “But I can see in your heart that you are not satisfied with the life you live, and sometimes the burden you bear becomes too heavy. Not a single moment of your life you lived for yourself. And as now you are just like a faded moon, ghastly and pale, you regret the years have passed, trying to comfort yourself with your children's problems.”

Po didn't respond, she cleared out the plinth and little cracks in the parquet as though not listening to the Mask, but her face remained sullen and sad.

“Have you, by the way, heard the story of the Pearl Empress and her Crystal Mirror? And of a monk girl, who was drowned in a pond of dawn lotuses?” proceeded the Mask. “The story may have changed, but the plot remained the same: the people never get satisfied with what you give, and the more you give, the more they want from you. Think of that, and think of that carefully, cleaning woman.”

“How do you know that?” asked Po in warm blood. “And how a piece of porcelain can see in the heart of the living?” Unfortunately, the Mask silenced. The sun has set, and gas lights went on one by one in the museum buildings. This time, the Mask was truly nothing but a piece of thin yellowed porcelain, looking unpleasantly alike with a carved bone of some extinct animal.

“Who are you talking with, Po?” asked the security, who's just started his night visiting round of all the exposition halls to make sure there was as nothing interesting in them as a night before. The museum wasn't much popular these days when the peace treaty was sealed and people rejoiced in the streets and parks, no matter the cold autumn weather.

“Nobody,” answered Po quickly. “Nobody in special. When I get bored, sometimes I speak to myself. It's the old women's thing, you shouldn't worry about that.”

“Okay, I got it. Speak, but don't speak too much,” the security warned Po, adding cheerfully, “If you will speak in an empty hall I can get you for a robber and shot. And if I shoot you, I'll have to fill in like a ton of blanks. You know how I hate paperwork!”

Po returned home by the Underground Train Service. She thought she would never get accustomed to the underground trains, but in the end, she liked it more than trams and city buses. There were a lot of lonely creatures underground, and Po liked to spend her time, comforting them, as they didn't speak but always made her feel better by the strange expressions of affection they left in her pockets – bands, silver bells, and, sometimes, beads with hieroglyphs Po's never seen before. In the end, they only needed attention, and attention was what Po had in excess. 

Po left milk and cucumbers, and rice and sunflower seeds, and little chocolates and cookies for them under the benches on empty and dreamy stations, there was nobody to stop Po or to tell her that she was out of her mind. Po understood what people used to say about old women who spoke to themselves while being alone, and she understood quite clear what there was a name for that women one of those she became: the old hags.

Po didn't get offended by the name. In the end, when she was a young girl, she didn't get offended by the people never believing her about whom she saw or spoke to while carrying water from the well or working in the field. Parents used to beat Po for the stories she was thinking over just to make herself special, as they believe a girl that was not shy and modest would never find a decent husband, especially a girls with such stories in her head. With the time being, Po learned to keep her secrets, never telling anyone about her secret companions because she knew that would literally bring her no luck. 

Once Po told about the creatures who appeared and talked to her while there was nobody around to her husband: that was the time Po believed he loved her. He listened to her, and, when she ended her speech, slapped Po and called her witch. Fortunately, he was too to go on, so Po got him into the bed and in the morning pretended that nothing has happened. Po's mother-in-law wouldn't stand her telling tales, and if she heard something like that she could decide that Po is possessed by a demon and that obviously would do Po no good.

Po got out the Underground Train Service at the last stop, which happened to be the station she needed, and, before leaving, bowed the huge black spot of the tunnel. Someone bowed back, trying to be as perfectly polite as Po was, but the station supervisor didn't see the ones in the tunnel and looked at Po with both suspect and persistent interest. Po answered him with a quick little smile and hurried up the steps with all of her numerous bags and backpacks she used to take at work to always have all that she needed around.

The walk to the apartment houses through the abandoned orchards was long enough for Po to feel that her knees were shaky. Dark shadows watched her with their yellow eyes from sunflowers, but Po didn't pay any attention to them. She knew that if she wouldn't pay attention, they would just disappear as she passed by the quiet suburbs. Most of Po's neighbors were in the center, celebrating, so the lonely walk became too lonely and too long for Po who started to long for the light and human voices, as suburbs were lit poorly.

Only when Po opened the creaking door into the porch and started to climbing up the staircase to the door of the flat, she felt safe. Po was never afraid nor of darkness, neither of shadows, but there were something about this darkness and those shadows, that frightened Po. She walked the stairs quickly though her feet terribly hurt: it seemed to Po that she heard ghostly little steps following her up the narrow stone staircases. When she reached the door to her flat, Po took the key from underneath her blouse and with shaking hands put it into the keyhole. She turned it, hearing the lock clicking, and dashed into the hallway, having slammed the door at her back.

“Maybe I am really nothing but the old hag?” when Po caught her breath, she asked the cat, who waited for Po before the door. The cat narrowed her watermelon green eyes and said in a lazy, sated manner, “Of course you are, Po. You are speaking to the cat and she answers to you. By the way, did you get me that sweet fish in round tins? Last time I liked it, I really really liked it.”

“I have no tuna for you,” Po took off her boots. They fell on the rag and Po picked them up and put into the flaked polish wardrobe. The door of the wardrobe creaked as a ghastly white face appeared in the open door and closed it, muttering with its teeth clenched.

Po sighed, “Where are no end and no beginning for this. Where is Fei Lin?”

“She went to the neighbor next floor, to drink coffee and to chatter,” the cat made a few little steps towards the kitchen, as though inviting Po to follow her. “There was nobody to get them to the city in any way, so... Again, we have a lot of coffee since the war has ended... Come, give me something; anything," the cat proclaimed impatiently. "I feel hungry.”

“How is Meili?” Po grabbed her bags and carried them into the kitchen with the cat under her feet making loops and circles as with every step Po took, the cat made a swift wind around her leg with all her long gray body. 

“When I was young, we used to sing a song about sweet beans from the province,” the cat ignored Po's question. She jumped firstly on a stool, and then — on the table, settling on the corner, her eyes half-closed. Po put her bags on the kitchen table and took out all the empty lunch boxes and food containers she used to carry at work, to eat by herself and to feed her friends nobody believed in. “I remember the words, but I just can't get the tune. It was so sweet, especially then the flutes took part.”

“And Meili?” Po turned on the tap and rubbed the sponge on the piece of rose soap. Po liked it rose, smelling with cherry blossom. The smell was not the cherry blossom she got accustomed to, it was too sharp and got into the nostrils violently, just like the music Meili used to listen to on her mother's gramophone got into the ears. But the soap looked so beautiful in its tiny paper packages, and Po always felt such a great lack of beautiful things, so she kept on buying it.

“Meili,” the cat opened her eyes only to roll them up. “Can't you just walk into her room and ask her how is she after her mother told her if Meili wanted to go to the centre of the city, she shouldn't. Meili had nothing to wear, said Fei Lin, and, if wearing what she was used to wearing, Meili would only make Fei Lin ashamed of her. Also, Fei Lin said that Meili is far too fat in any way to get into a proper dress, even if Fei Lin bought Meili a dress or gave her one of her own.”

Po washed the lunch boxes in silence, putting them into the dish dryer rack: neatly, one by one, green, peachy yellow, pale red and blue, they looked like fairy seashells. Colors and smells, they made Po happy, but she didn't feel happy coming to her home as she never felt happy coming to her parents' home, or to her husband's home. Po used to explain it to herself that it was because there was no home that could make her happy, but sometimes she wondered if it all was really about home, not about people who loved in it, always making Po worry about them so much.

“You think it's cruel?” the cat rolled her tail around her paws, looking at Po with curiosity. Po saw the cat's reflection in the frying pan, hanging from the corner of the dryer rack. “You never heard mistress Lu talking to the girls while she watched them dancing. She was really hard on us, and Fei Lin is now being just a little mean.”

“I heard worst things,” Po objected briefly, wiping her hands on a towel. “What I don't understand is why Fei Lin has grown up like that. I know, my husband's mother never believed that words could hurt, but they could. I tried to be so gentle with Fei Lin, I tried to protect her from the cruel tongues. Why is she so cruel to Meili? She has no reason for that.”

“Do you really think she needs a reason?” the cat hooked up a cap and moved it to the edge of the table. The cup froze on the edge and started falling, but Po managed to catch it before it touched the floor and broke. “I think she doesn't need a reason to do whatever she wants to, because she knows that nothing would ever stop her, especially her obliging old mother.”

Po didn't answer the cat. She put the kettle on fire and took out the cups and napkins: for herself, for the cat, for Meili if she wanted to join them in the kitchen, and for those who came for the tea every evening, even though they weren't invited. The God of Poverty who nestled under the staircase, the weary dragon from the roof of the noodle eatery across the street, and the toad in a size of a cat, who in her forehead carried a big dim and cracked gem. never miss a chance to drink tea at Po's kitchen, enjoying the light and the warmth.

They sipped tea in silence, only the toad smacked its fat lips, savoring the sweetness of the tea with three additional spoons of sugar. The God of Poverty and the dragon felt that Po was sad about something as Po noticed them exchanging the looks. They both were polite enough not pointing their understanding out, and that's what Po liked the most about them, as the toad lacked their manners in all except the cracker stealing. God of Poverty used to pilfer crackers from the sennit in the middle of the table to the pocket of his rope. Ast the crackers fell down through the halls n his pocket, the toad picked them up with her long sticky tongue, swallowing without chewing with a tender expression of her dull gray eyes.

“I need to go and take a look at Meili,” said Po, talking to nobody in special: nevertheless, when she spoke out, everyone looked at her. Po put her hands on the table and stood up heavily, fighting her stiff knees. It was nice to seat with a cup of hot steaming tea while it was cold and dark outside, and the rain dropped on the windowsill, but Po worried about Meili: she saw that Meili didn't eat her dinner again. Regardless, the dishes were washed and put into the dryer, the amount of the food Po made before going to work didn't lessen, and it disturbed her. 

Po walked down the hallway to the door to room Meili and her shared. The door was open, darkness looked at Po's from the crack between the door and the doorjamb. Po opened the door just a little bit wider, firstly it didn't help. Only when here eyes got accustomed to the darkness, she saw a figure curled under the blanket on the bed, her face to the screen, dividing the room into Po and Meili's half, and Fei Lin' half. There was no sound in the room but the silence and the sound of even breath, which was evidently too flat and mechanical for the one having a restful sleep.

Po wanted to call Meili by the name and ask why she didn't eat the dinner, but something made her close the door quietly and walk out of the room. Po thought it was cruel to make Meili remember what Fei Lin told her that made her refuse the food, especially if Meili tried to comfort herself with the sleep, showing Po she didn't want to talk. Standing by the room's door, Po heard of the unlocking entrance door. She turned back and saw Fei Lin in her red dressing gown covered with satin appliques of water lilies, curlers in her hair. Fei Lin locked the door, turning the key free or four times, moving her lips silently, and put the key in the pocket, not looking at Po.

“Fei Lin,” asked Po gently, knowing there will be a storm. “You weren't mean to Meili today, were you? She hasn't even touch the food, not a little sip of the soup or not s single bit of spicy chicken. I am worried.”

“If she decided to finally look what she eat, it's only good for her,” Fei Lin shrugged her shoulders. She was in her last forties, very beautiful, and looked much younger than most of the women in her years. On the contrary, Po looked older than her mid-sixties, but she didn't care about it much as she never cared for her looks: in the beginning, she had no time, and in the end — no desire for attempts of good-looking.

“Meili seems to be hurt,” whispered Po, and Fei Lin responded in her loud, well-put voice of the choir teacher, “If she feels hurt because of my words more than because of her fat, I doubt she is my daughter. She is only fourteen, and she weights 154 pounds! I am not going to pretend it's good for a girl of her age. It is disgusting!”

“Why do you say so?” said Po accusingly. No matter how hard Po tried, she never succeeded to sound as menacing as, her mother-in-law. “I didn't insult you when you were a child. The way you speak to Meili sometimes makes me regret it.”

“You never insulted me?” Fei Li strained like a cat who noticed the mouse. “You were a serving woman for my father and grandmother! You have no voice, no rights in the family. How do you think, did it insult me to see my mother treated like this, pretending it is alright? I am doing Meili a favor – I am not letting you spoil her with your weakness!”

“You think I am weak?” Po's looked at Fei Lin as though it was the first time she saw her.

“Yes,” Fei Lin nodded with confidence, folding her arms. “I do. You came to the city of Yen, never trying to change your life, only serving to the ones who used you. And you taught Meili to serve to her body like you served everyone who was bold enough to command you, and she made it big, soft and fat. It is disgusting to look at my daughter and see what she has become because of her grandmother. And if with what I've said I made her stop eating even for an evening – well, I succeeded.”

With those words Fai Lin walked to the kitchen, leaving Po standing the hallway, her head and arms down. Po slipped into the room, still hearing Fei Lin's voice from the kitchen. Fei Lin's voice was the one you couldn't avoid hearing even through several walls.

“Why those cups and the cat on the table! I told you if you want to drink tea, take one cup, not all the cupboard!” The cups tinkled as Fei Lin shove it into the sink, talking to herself again, “This family is going to be the death of mine. Did we come to the city to make better lives? No! My mother is hagging and drinking tea with her imaginary friends, and my daughter can't help eating everything she sees!How people can accept as and treat as well if we are fat and half-mad women, making them doubt they allowed us to live in their city!”

Fei Lin was angry, and the cups tinkled louder and louder, so was her voice, which in the morning would make Po feel ashamed before the neighbors if most of the neighbors weren't at the city celebration. Po never wanted Fei Lin to grow as quiet and obedient as Po herself. It was quietness and obedience that made Po's life so hard, but Po wasn't born so, she was made, shaped in the form a watermelon grown in a vase. How had it come that Po was unable to explain it to Fei Lin?

It was many “no” in Po's childhood, and a definite lack of “yes”, it was too many prohibitions and very few permissions. It struck Po hard that Fei Lin thought her weak. She believed that Fei Lin one day would grow up, understanding how much Po sacrificed to make Fei Lin free and happy. Po knew that it was hard to Fei Lin to be left alone with her grandmother, that she loved Fei Lin bit was strict on her – much milder, than on Po, but still for a child, it might be hard to deal with.

But it all ended like that: Fei Lin thinking Po guilty for the troubles of her childhood. Maybe Fei Lin was right, thought Po, lying in the bed next to Meili, who still pretended to be sleeping, and watching the ceiling, there in the green smoke demons' heads soared. Maybe all that Fei Lin learned, watching Po, was Fei Lin was not going to repeat the same mistakes Po made. Demons' faces up the ceiling looked as tired and snuffy as Po felt that night. There were little children left believing in night demons of their foremothers, making the demons come to Po instead of them and silently complain the life they had to live in the city. 

Nevertheless, demons heads seemed like they didn't have as many problems in their lives, as Po had. They had problems of their own, that was true, but they had no children blaming them for all the mistakes they made, and no troubled grandchildren to worry about. They needed only the kids to scare in their sleep, and to return to the land of Emerald Dragon whose gates was closed as the Mask couldn't manage to get a servant girl of the Dragon Palace for two hundred years. 

There was a sound behind Po's door that made demons' heads grumble: floorboard creaked, it's creak pierced the mild calm of darkened Po's room like a needle piercing a side of a paper lantern. It seemed like there was somebody, quietly walking from the door to the sofa behind the screen. It was Fei Lin going to sleep, and she lingered before Po's bed: Po felt her presence right behind her, sensed the smell of her perfume. Fei Lin wanted to talk, but Po pretend sleeping, and the floorboard creaked once again, and Fei Li hid behind the screen. 

Po felt guilty a little, she knew where Meili got the habit to pretend to sleep just to avoid talking to her family, but there was nothing she could do: in all her life, the only thing that could possibly stop people from making her work for them was the sleep, but it also managed to work only in last P's years. When she was a daughter and a young wife, even her sleep couldn't make her husband from intending to make out with her, or her mother-in-law – from making Po cook something or just to make Po rub her neck as it ached and crunched when Po's mother-in-law moved her head. 

There were no such problems in the land of the Emerald Dragon. The Emerald Dragon just wanted a maid to keep quiet and serve, not asking questions, being useful and gentle, in exchange for everlasting youth and beauty along with magical powers, with which the Emerald Dragon always regarded those who made her the most useful favors. There was a time when Emerald Dragon was so almighty that everyone could be able to see her servants, but as the time had changed, people no more looked around: they looked inside of their heads, not seeing anything but their troubled selves – at least, it was what told Po her grandmother.

The world had changed, and the Emerald Dragon lost her power over it. She lost her power over the world, but in her kingdom all remained the same: there were deities, demons and fairy-tail beings, floating mountains, seven moons across the magic monasteries there the ancient mystics wrote the stories of the times then the sun and the moon itself were young and bright like brand new coins. The land of magic and the land of wonders was the place Emperors and Empresses might only dreamed to get to to master the magical knowledge. But something was wrong with the land of Po's childhood fairy-tales, as gods and demons walked the streets of the city with only Po seeing them, desperate and forsaken while there was nobody to take care of them.

Po lied in darkness for several minutes, or maybe it was several hours, sleepless: time flew like a river, Fei Lin snorted behind the scene, and Meili breathed quietly, wrapped in her blanket. Po closed her eyes, trying to fall asleep, when she heard Meili's voice, "Nana, are you sleeping?"

“No. And you, why aren’t you sleeping?” asked Po, turning to Meili, “Did Fei Lin and I wake you up?”

“I’ve heard what you were talking about,” Meili tried to sound indifferent, but her voice was faltering. “About how fat and disgusting I am.” She was going to break into tears, and Po tried to comfort her as she could, but Meili covered her face with her arms and gave a cry, “Stop telling me how beautiful I am!”

“But you are,” Po disagreed softly. “Beauty is not in your shape or size.”

“So where is it?” asked Meili bitterly. Demons’ heads on the ceiling listened to her voice with interest. One head pretended it found human problems beyond its attention but moved its ears to Meili to listen to her better. “Mom is beautiful, she’s been beautiful and will always be. I’ve seen the pictures of her when she was of my age. She didn’t look like a dead whale.”

“You’ve never looked like a dead whale. You are beautiful, too. When I was like you, I used to be plump. That’s why your grandfather fell in love with me and took me away to the city.”

Meili snorted and leaned back her hair. The hair was greasy, it was noticeable even in the dark room. When Meili used to be a little girl, Po washed her hair, brushed it and plaited it, putting nice bright flower barrettes into it. Meili started forgetting to wash her hair when Fei Lin scolded her because of her weight. Po always felt her heart pinned to the wall when she thought about a happy little girl Meili was, and sad, lonely and blue she became while growing older.

“I am ugly,” said Meili with conviction. Heads on the ceiling exchanged looks and opened their mouths to start arguing. Po frowned and they froze, words coming from their mouths stopped in the air, fading away in glowing hieroglyphs. “I am ugly and I know it. But I wanted to ask you about the dream I saw last night.”

“What was your dream?” Po watched demons’ heads. They hesitated, not knowing what to do as Po wasn’t alone and disapproved of they taking part in the conversation. Once they were powerful enough to never mind the mortals, but now they depended on Po’s attention and didn’t want to make her angry. So they disappeared slowly, one by one, the last head giving Po a reproachful look.

“You said you’ve seen strange dreams when you were a girl,” Meili started doubtfully. “That you’ve seen strange places and strange… creatures talking to you, asking you about the things you didn’t understand.”

“It was so,” Po agreed, holding Meili’s hand. “You’ve seen one of those dreams, too?”

“Yes. There was a palace, built of gold and green… No, bright emerald stones. There was a woman on a throne of golden elephants. Her hair was green, and her arms were covered with squama, and she had snake eyes and a big fan,” Meili bit her lip. “There was a man in red silk rope, just like mom’s, but very old. He was wearing a porcelain mask from the museum.”

“Does it frighten you? The dream?” Po felt disturbance rising, but she tried to speak like she was calm, as she saw how nervous Meili was about her sleep. Po didn’t want to frighten Meili more, but in her heart she was afraid.

“It wasn’t the dream exactly what frightened me,” Meili shivered, and Po felt it – shiver running through her body, starting, covering her skin with goosebumps. “The women looked at me, not winking, and she didn't notice that the man in the mask stood at her throne, his mouth open wide, his mask moved to his forehead. There was darkness in his mouth, and he... he swallowed her, nana.”

“It was just a dream, dear,” answered Po in a faint voice. “Nothing to worry about.”

“It all only became scarier,” Meili proceeded, not listening to Po. “All the colors faded away, it went darker and I saw shadows dancing in the corners of the hall. Shadows started gathering before the throne, and he shouted, 'Go away! I forbid you! You will stay outside ‘till you will accept me as your true ruler!' After he said that, he took off that mask and tried to put it on my face.”

“Was it all that happened in your dream?” Po squeezed Meili's arm, and Meili pulled her arm, exclaiming with surprise and offense in her voice, “Stop that, it hurt! What's wrong with you, it is just a dream!”

“I'm sorry,” mumbled Po. 

Meili had cold feet, and she was hard to get warm. No matter, how tight she hold Po, she still mumbled of cold winds and the frost biting her toes. Po folded the blanket to see if that were demons' tricks, but all that she saw was the blinks of white, disappearing quickly at Po's look. To calm Meili down, Po started whispering a lullaby she sang when Meili was a little girl, the one she loved the most: about little gods of th temple garden, playing in the pond and splashing the water so hard, they make the spirit of a turtle, guarding the orchard, angry. Po whispered until she heard Meili's dreamy snuffling, but her sleep wasn't calm.

Meili mumbled about red ropes and the mask leaning over her. Po was so afraid of Meili's dream, that every time she heard Meili's muttering, she wake her up. It was hard as Meili's body became numb and cold like a corpse. Po started to desperately shake Meili's shoulders and slapping her face. It was harsh but effective: when Po slapped Meili's face, she felt Meili's cheeks cold as ice, but then Meili opened her eyes, her cheeks turned rose again, and her breath warmed up. 

Po it all lasted before the early morning hours when the sky was still dark, but it became lighter with every hour. Meili slept tide with no nightmares anymore, but Po felt exhausted with her night watch. Po's throat was dry and she went to the kitchen to drink a glass of water with the remains of yesterday tea, as she knew that Fei Lin never washed the teapot. The hallway and the kitchen bathed in lilac twilight, and Po dozed off on the stool, her back to the wall, glass of water in her hand.

Po didn't know that made her open her eyes put the glass away. She hurried down the hallway to the room's door, putting her ear to it. It was quiet inside, and Po was ready to sigh with relief, but what she felt made her tremble. The draft coming from under the door was so strong and so cold, that Po's legs even in pajamas covered with the goosebumps. There was no cat around, Po remembered suddenly, she didn't see her either by the door or in the kitchen. Where was she? The door cracked, opening, and Po saw little black paw, holding it.

“At last, you've come!” cried the cat. “Come and help us!”

Po didn't have time to think much. She rushed to the room, coming by Meili who seemed to sleep so deep that didn't hear anything, behind the scene where Fei Lin lied, cold and numb like Meili few hours before, her body bend unnaturally. There were the toad and the God of Poverty sitting at Fei Lin's feet, one at each, looking at Po with hope. Po started to tweak Fei Lin's cheeks, kept on tugging her nightgown while trying to warm her ice cold skin with her breath, but Fei Lin didn't react. 

“Why haven't you called for me?!” Po cried, slapping Fei Lin's face.

“I did! You didn't hear me!” the cat hissed. “And I couldn't come, because, you know, the dream would take your daughter away if it wasn't me, sitting on her chest and purring like a pot on a fire.”

Po grabbed Fe Lin's shoulders. For all Po's life, there were too many times when it was nothing she could do about all the pain, offense and injustice she faced. But not this time, this time, it was all about Po's daughter. The toad and the God of Poverty came closer, circling Po. They weren't warm, they weren't alive, but they somehow came to help her, though Po didn't know, how.

The God of Poverty put his hand on Po's shoulder and the toad opened her mouth. A thick, pale green tongue, bearing a strong resemblance to a human one, fell out, covered with slime smelling with a plum jelly. The God pointed his finger at the slime, and when – on Fei Lin's face. As Po hesitated, the toad got closer to Fei Lin's and wiped her face with her tongue, covering it with a thin layer of slime.

“Slap her!” cried the cat, her hair standing on its end. She put her claws through Fei Lin's nightgown right in her skin, the blood came out, smearing on the satin. “Slap her hard till she's awake!”

Po started and slapped Fei Lin hard on her cheek, leaving a smeared with slime print of turquoise on her skin. Fei Lin's nostrils shivered. The toad licked the other half of her face, while the Good of Poverty clenched Po's fingers on her shoulders, making Po's arms glow. With that glowing, Po slapped Fei Lin again, and it - it worked. Slowly, carefully, Fei Lin lied down on the sofa, her arms and legs relaxing. Po leaned over her, watching Fei Lin's expression tensely, but she just turned on her belly and snorted, spreading her arms and legs on the bed.

Po sat on Fei Lin's sofa, her fingers interlocked, cat on her lap, toad at her feet, and the God of Poverty at her side. Po's hands were shaky, but she managed to hold them still, though it was hard: Po felt like all her body was shaking, too. 

“He would never get rid of you now,” said the cat, clenching and unclenching her little soft fingers. “Too bad he knows the way to your home.”

“Who?” asked Po wearily, already knowing the answer. The clouds, gathering over her family, this time, was darker and thicker than she could cope with. The God of Poverty, sitting next to Po, didn't glow anymore, he was as translucent as the air, and only the weak contour of his silhouette showed that he was still there. The toad looked bad, too, it opened its mouth, stuck out its tongue, breathing in heavy amplitudes, like a bulldog. 

“The Consular,” explained the cat easily, as though she was talking about the most common thing. “The one who stole Emerald Dragon's power. You though we all are nestling in your world because we like it? No. He banished us because nobody was going to accept his power after the what he has done to Emerald Dragon.”

“Why did he need my granddaughter?” asked Po, cautiously putting her hand on toad's head. Toad opened its eyes, giving Po a look of her bulging eyes, and closed them with the slight content blinked in the corners. Po needed to calm down, and as the toad felt unwell, Po knew no better way to calm down than to help somebody.

While Po was caressing toad's forehead, she didn't feel the bumps and warts of it as she didn't feel her fingers. Po needed to have a rest, a cup of tea, her knees covered with a blanket, the cat lulling her with soft, gentle purring. She didn't feel good enough to talk, to think, to make decisions, but the decisions were to be made after a noticeable amount of talking and thinking Po couldn't avoid. So, Po ignored her weakness, concentrating on the toad and the cat, as the God of Poverty was too feeble to rely on. 

“He needs maids every hundred years to feed his powers,” the cat outstretched at Po's knees, looking at her mindfully. The cat's fur looked wooly and dirty, that made Po remembered it was fourteen years ago when she brought home a kitten, which the concierge in the museum told was bringing luck to the house. “As we all left, the gods and the demons, there were nothing that would keep our world together, but the Red Consular. When he gets a girl, he sucks her powers of life out, transforms them and makes his world – our world – live on.”

“Fei Lin is not a young girl,” Po marked. The toad pressed its head to Po's leg, as it started to fall asleep, the gem in its head becoming dim and vague. “Why did he came in her sleep instead of Meili's?”

“Because he learned what you are guarding Meili. The only way to distract her was to attack Fei Lin.”

“Meili!” outcried Po, jumping out of the bed. How could she left her little girl! The cat sizzled, falling from Po's knees, and Fei Lin grunted in her sleep, but she didn't wake up even when Po rushed to Meili's bed, dropping the screen with tremendous rumbling, but it was no need to hurry. On Meili's bed, curled in circles, nestled the dragon from the noodle eatery, guarding her sleep. The dragon opened an eye to look at Po, snorted, letting out a grayish cloud of smoke from his nostrils, and closed his eyes again. 

“He is watching Meili,” said the cat, jumping on Meili's bed for Po to see her better, 'but this is not enough. The Red Consular won't leave you before he gets what he needs – his maiden. Don't you find it strange Fei Lin and Meili didn't wake up after all the noise you've made? The Consular touched them in their sleep for nothing could stop him from stealing Meili's powers of life next night. While in the enchanted sleep, Meili will be weaker and weaker every night, and if you guard her, he will attack Fei Lin to distract you. Still, there's something you can do to save them.”

“Why are you helping me?” asked Po helplessly. Her little power wasn't enough to save her girls, and she was astonished by how loyal her cat, and pet demons, and the forgotten God appeared to be, though they owed her nothing but tea, and, as for the cat, chicken and, sometimes, tuna. 

“You were the anchor,” answered the cat easily. “You kept us in this world not letting us forget who we are. You took us for what we are – for the gods.” Po knew the cats didn't smile, but her cat obviously smiled, showing Po her little, yellowish teeth and fangs, one of which were broken. But, as far as Po knew, the cats didn't speak either, so Po believed the cat and made a little bow to thank her. It was incomprehensible for Po, how she gained such a help from the one she always pitied and never relied on.

“I thought, I was just an old mad woman who was slowly losing her mind.”

“You are old, but you are not mad, Po,” the cat looked at Po indulgently. “You may be the sanest woman in that city as you know the danger when you see it.”

“So, the Mask will come for Meili again?” asked Po in a half-bow, watching the cat, which appeared to be not a cat at all. The cat seemed Po a red and gold statuette of a cat, which she used to see in the temples, as well as a small woman in a red dress with white silk collar, covered in peonies.

It appeared to Po that her cat wasn't just a talking cat. There were not too many talking cats in the streets, Po admitted that, but there were too many unusual things happening with Po as longs as she remembered. But it all seemed that it was the cat who commanded the God of Poverty and the toad, and that was the cat who made the dragon protect Meili's sleep. Po never saw the cat talking to anyone of them, she was pretty sure that was the cat who decided what to do, and the gods obeyed.

Something new appeared in the cat, who talked to Po in a manner that made Po want to bow and to be polite. Po knew that feeling, mister Zhou, the museum director, made her feel the same. Mister Zhou was wearing white suit, eyeglasses in a golden frame, and never doubted anyone, he spoke to should obey him, as well as Po's cat, had no doubts Po would listen to her carefully, with no interrupting, and the should dragon remain at his place as long as the cat would tell him, and the toad and the God of Poverty weren't allowed to take part in conversation. 

“Yes. The next night, and the night after the next night, and the next-next night... We will keep him away, but he won't stop returning. One day he would take Meili if you won't bring her to the museum,” warned the cat, frowning. “Don't look at me like that,” exclaimed the cat discontentedly, as she saw Po's face changed. “You are the only one here who never think of yourself because nobody taught you to value your life. And we - we all once were the gods, and we are bound to the place we are exiled from. If the Consular won't get what he needs, though he is both a murderer and a fool, we will die, even more, than just die - disappear. Our existence depends on him keeping our world together.”

“So you mean, you won't protect my family any longer,” said Po, her heart sinking.

“Please, Po,” sighed the cat in the same impatient manner mister Zhou scolded the workers who didn't understand the importance of the work under his command. “It is always a deal. When you take a girl and give her to the mask, it is a deal. He will have to give you what he promised, remembering every single word he said. But if you refuse, and he steals her from you... He owes you nothing.”

“You've helped me only to say I have to give Meili to him?” 

“No. I say, that if you give Meili to him, he will give you the power to follow him into his world, and, maybe, to fight for her in his world. To save Meili. To save us all.” The cat moved at the edge of the bed, looking into Po's eyes intensively. She looked like that she was close to starting begging Po, but she was too proud to beg.

“Now that must be or you, or me insane. I've cleaned and rubbed and washed for all my life. What can I do in the land of the dreams and nightmares?” Po asked, shocked. “I am not strong, I am not brave, I am old and tired. Don't you have a better woman for all of that?”

“You can do what you've always done, Po. You can fight for your family,” the cat disagreed. “We can't fight for you as you yourself: here we are holding only on your faith. But together, if the Consular gives you what he must, we can take Meili's back. We can take our home back.”

“Meili told that that man, the Consular, took off his mask and tried to put it on her face. Is it how he takes girls into his palace?” Po asked, after being silent for a while. 

“Yes. The Mask is the door into our homeworld. Po,” the cat agreed. “That's why nobody of us ever tried to fight the Consular. He will never let us approach the mask, and we can't harm him while he is hiding behind it. Once the mask is broken, we will never find a way back.”

“And if I take him a girl, he will give me some of his magic in the moment she puts on the mask?” Po was thinking, and thinking hard. Fairy-tales that Po got loads of in her childhood did make sense. And since they did make sense, Po knew, what else made sense.

“Yes. He will. Magic is all about promises kept. If you don't keep your promise, you can't have your magic. Po, why are you looking at me like that? Is that something on your mind?” worried the cat, but Po didn't answer.

The buses were still at the bus-station, sleeping in their hangars, so Po walked to the Underground Train Service station on foot. She wanted to be at the museum at dawn to talk to the Mask, that also meant she would wait before the doors to the security to open it for her, but she had time – she felt like she had all the time in the world to wait for the Mask. Creatures of dreams and shadows looked at Po from under the benches, scratched their ghostly nails and the windows of the underground carriage, but this time, Po got nothing for them.

The closer Po got to the museum, the more anxiety, and impatience she felt. Firstly Po decided, that it was her thoughts that made all those small, forgotten, forlorn gods, who moved to the city of Yen in sacks and packs of their people leaving their villages for better life, so excited, but the stir was too much for her thoughts only. Po understood that was really happening only when she walked out of the carriage on her station and hurried downstairs to the museum. There, on the cold morning square before the museum building, she finally got it: it was all the Mask.

The Mask sensed Po's decision and waited for her, and, as the Mask waited, waited for the small gods, as the Mask was both the gate and the key to the what it kept for the centuries: a way back home. The sky was both golden and rose, and marble columns at the entrance looked like bathing in cherry wine. The lions at the museum door looked at Po with interest, when she passed: their talons scraped malachite balls under the paws, making Po understand they knew the story, too.

“You are back, cleaning woman,” said the Mask with contempt, when Po stood before it again, her hands clenched on her belly. “You've understood what I was giving you nobody would ever give. Don't you pity your granddaughter no more?” 

“I do pity her,” answered Po. “That's why I am here.”

“You are here and you are willing to sacrifice your only treasure – your beloved child. I can't only see the child,” if the Mask could raise its head and look around, it would, but it had no neck: the Mask was only a pretty yellowish face of ancient porcelain, thin as paper but sharp as bones. Its blind dark eyes looked right into Po's, and beams of the rising sun glittered in it. “Where is the child?”

“I've forgotten,” said Po, breaking the showcase with her bare hands. Blood streamed down her fingers, skin opened bloody mouths to show crimson flesh, but Po didn't care for it either as for the alarm, howling in the halls. Security was tromping down the staircase from their office, there the night shift and the day shift were having coffee together. Po knew it would take them no less and no more than two minutes to get to the Mask showcase, so Po put the Mask on, pressing the old bones to her wrinkled skin. “I've forgotten to say, there will be no granddaughter.”

The Mask screamed silently, and Po's world flashed. Po felt the odor of cherry blossom, mixed with tender notes of incense and still water, and when – there was no Po in that world. Flashes all around the city swept away the ones who were left behind the doors, under the staircases, in the darkness of metro tunnels, but nobody could see them. And when the security rushed into the hall, their truncheons at ready, they found nothing but a broken glass, spilled with blood, and the porcelain mask with a crack in its forehead.

***  
If you like this work, you may also like the another one: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5771851


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